Retreat
by Qweb
Summary: After Kono is killed, Danny retreats to his family in New Jersey, but Steve follows him. This sad story is TV Guide's fault.


_Consider this an exorcism. That dratted TV Guide article that said someone — maybe Kono — will be killed in the season ender has sent my muse into a tailspin. All I can think of are sad stories and I have to write them down to get them out of my head. At least this one gives me an excuse to send Danny back to New Jersey. It's not about Kono's death, but about the aftermath; but just so you know, in my mind, if anyone kills Kono it's going to be Sang Min. And wouldn't Danny and Steve feel guilty about that? And I can't even bear to think about what it would do to Chin Ho, so I didn't write about Chin. I really hope this ends up as an AU story. I don't want to lose any of the four_.

_Tomorrow I'll post the second part of Fight in the Dog to cheer everyone back up._

_**Retreat: Noun – A place of sanctuary. Verb – To run away.**_

**Retreat**

Steve McGarrett didn't know why he went into the Five-0 office. No one else was there. No one was expected after the tragedy of the previous week. Steve didn't know why he was there, except he couldn't think of anywhere else to go.

He turned over the mail in desultory fashion, then sat up suddenly, surprise breaking through the fog of grief. The letter was from his partner, Danny Williams, addressed in the neat printing developed during years of filling out forms pre-computer.

Inside was an equally neatly printed letter of resignation.

### 5-0 5-0 5-0 ###

Not finding Danny at his apartment, Steve was relieved to see the silver Camaro parked to the side at Danny's ex-wife's house. Rachel didn't let Steve in, but she came to the gate when he buzzed on the intercom.

"He's not here, Steve," she said with cold compassion, as if she didn't know whether to be sympathetic or angry. "He's gone home."

"I just came from his place …" Steve began.

"No, I mean he's gone home to New Jersey."

Steve swallowed. "Is he coming back?"

"I don't know. I think so. He told Grace he would be back. He left his car here and paid all his bills for a month."

"He sent me a letter of resignation."

"He'll be back for Grace. I don't know if he'll be back for Five-0," Rachel said.

### 5-0 5-0 5-0 ###

It was Sunday afternoon and the Williams clan was gathering at the family home in Piscataway, New Jersey. Raffaella Williams was cooking her prodigal son's favorite lasagna and the house smelled good enough to make a vegan drool.

"Whoa! About time. You're the last ones here," Danny said, opening the door to greet his sister Deborah, her husband Mark and their children Peter and Elizabeth. Nine-year-old Peter threw his arms around his uncle's neck before racing off to find his grandparents. Elizabeth hung back, uncertain. Danny wondered if the six-year-old even remembered him. It had been more than a year.

He crouched down to her eye level. "Hey, Little Bit, remember your Uncle Danny?"

"Not 'Little Bit,' ''Lizabeth'," the girl reproved, but apparently the nickname struck a bell, because she came willingly for a hug. Anyway, Danny looked enough like her mother to be her twin, though he was a year older than Debbie.

Danny picked Elizabeth up, missing his daughter even as he hugged his niece. Still holding the girl, Danny pulled Debbie into a one-armed hug and then reached to shake Mark's hand.

"I'm glad to see you, Danny. We've missed you. But I'm sorry it's under these circumstances," Mark said.

"Thanks, babe, I appreciate it," Danny said, setting Elizabeth on her feet.

Happening to glance out the etched glass panel beside the door, Debbie went still, then said, "Danny, there's a Navy officer coming down the street."

"What?" Sick with dread, Danny peered out the panel and saw Steve in full uniform and overcoat hiking up the street from a parked rental car. Danny put his hands over Elizabeth's ears and swore.

"That's him, then? McGarrett?"

"Yes. Dammit, Steve, why didn't you stay in Hawaii?" For a few hours Danny had been able to forget, now it came rushing back, the blood on the broken body, the formal funeral, Chin Ho weeping all alone, shunned by his relatives. The doorbell rang, jarring Danny back to the present, but leaving the nightmare raw and bleeding in his memory.

Danny yanked the door open. "There's nobody home. Go away," he yelled at Steve's face and slammed the door on "But, Danny," then opened it again to say, "Leave me alone. I have nothing to say to you." And slammed the door again.

Danny stood with his back pressed to the door as if to prevent a forcible entry. "Better keep the kids away, in case he tries to blow the door down."

"He wouldn't really, would he?" his youngest sister Rebecca asked. She and her husband Josh had been attracted by the commotion.

"I never know with him," Danny answered.

But Steve didn't try to break in, didn't even ring the doorbell again. He sat on the snow-crusted porch and tried to think what to do now.

Now the entry hall got even more crowded as Danny's parents came to see what was happening.

"Who keeps slamming that door?" Benjamin Williams demanded.

"Who's that on the stoop?" Raffaella asked, craning her neck to see past her two tall sons-in-law.

Debbie explained quickly.

"Daniel, you can't leave a naval officer sitting on my doorstep," Raffaella told her son, firm in the face of his mulish expression.

Debbie had always known her brother best. "Danny, you can't leave your friend sitting out in the snow," she said quietly. "He's from Hawaii. He'll catch pneumonia."

"Fine!" Danny threw up his hands. "Fine! I'll let him in, then everyone can be happy."

He yanked the door open again. "Come in here. Quit sitting on the porch like a lost puppy. You're embarrassing my mother in front of her neighbors."

Steve jumped up and entered before Danny could change his mind. While he took off his overcoat and politely removed his hat, Danny slipped out the door and quietly closed it behind him. His mother raised her eyes to the heavens. His father opened his mouth, but thought better of it. No one said a word and they all watched McGarrett.

When Steve turned around, his partner was gone. "Aw, Danny."

He dropped down on the boot bench, exhausted. He rubbed his hand through hair that felt greasy and futilely smoothed a uniform rumpled by too many hours on a plane. He knew Danny's entire family was staring at him.

He looked up and met the eyes of Debbie who stood the closest. It was disconcerting to see a female version of Danny, about the same height though womanly shaped, with the same fair hair pulled back from her brow, chewing her lower lip with the same contemplative expression.

Steve was sharply aware that he looked like crap, probably didn't smell very good and, as he caught a whiff of dinner, he realized he was starving, too. His stomach growled loudly. "Sorry," he apologized, mortified.

Debbie suddenly grinned Danny's grin. "No, you couldn't have made a better move if you'd planned it."

Raffaella pushed herself forward to face Steve. "How long has it been since you've eaten?" she demanded.

"I bought a snack box on the plane," he said.

She threw up her hands in horror. "Come in. You'll stay for dinner," she ordered, taking his arm and drawing him into the living room. She had never sent any of Danny's friends home hungry and she wasn't about to start now.

Benjamin Williams leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets, and contemplated his daughters. Debbie had been closest in age to Danny, always his best friend among his siblings; but Becca had been the little marvel that a charmed nine-year-old Danny had held in his arms. The baby of the family had always been able to wrap Danny around her little finger.

"Becca, go get your brother. Tell him I said to come home now. His mother's been cooking all day for him."

"Yes sir," she said. She collected her coat and Danny's.

"Will you have any trouble finding him?" her husband asked.

"He won't have gone far without his coat," Becca answered. "And he won't go to the deli or Chong's when Mom's cooking, so he's probably in Hanrahan's."

"Tell him I won't have this behavior while he's staying in my house," Benjamin said sternly.

"It's Mom's house," Becca responded with the family joke. Raffaella had inherited the home from her grandparents.

### 5-0 5-0 5-0 ###

At a back booth in the neighborhood bar, Danny morosely nursed a beer. Mike Hanrahan watched him regretfully. He and Danny had grown up together and he would have liked to talk about old times and Hawaii, but if Danny didn't sit at the bar, he didn't want to chat. Mike was relieved when Becca came in. He tipped his head in Danny's direction.

"He all right?" Mike asked.

"Not really. One of his friends was killed in Hawaii. A rookie cop. He's taking it hard."

"He would," Mike agreed. A head shorter than the kids his age, but still everyone's big brother, that was the Danny that Mike remembered.

Danny was staring at the bottle of beer as he turned it around and around on the table. He'd hardly drunk two swallows of the pale brew.

Becca draped his coat across his knees and slid into the booth across from him.

"Dad says come home. You might as well. Mom's decided your friend needs to be fed, so unless you want to miss the lasagna and hurt Mom's feelings …"

"Trust Steve to find a way to spoil Mom's lasagna for me."

"He's not really so bad, is he?"

"It's not him. It's all the baggage he brought with him. I'd hoped to leave it at Honolulu International."

Becca put her hand on Danny's and realized he was trembling. She squeezed until the trembling stopped.

"I hate to see you so unhappy, big brother."

"Becca, I've been unhappy so long I hardly remember how to be anything else." He took a long swallow of his beer, set the half full bottle down and stood. "Come on. Don't want the lasagna to get cold."

### 5-0 5-0 5-0 ###

A ten-minute shower and a change of clothes did wonders for Steve's morale. And he definitely felt less conspicuous in civvies.

Danny was leaning against the hall wall when Steve came out of the bathroom. The commander's eyes lit to see his partner, but the partner held up a finger for silence.

"I don't want to talk."

"Danny, we've got to talk."

His partner shrugged in surrender. "After dinner. I wish you hadn't come, Steve. I needed my family time and you're spoiling it."

Steve hung his head. "I had to come. After I got your letter, I had to."

Danny's expression softened as he regarded his penitent friend.

"Well, as long as you're here, you goof, come and meet the family properly this time. But no talking about work." He said it lightly, but Steve knew what he meant. Talking about work meant thinking about Kono and that hurt too much right now.

The rest of the family was gathered around the table, when Steve and Danny entered. Steve was amused to see they'd left two spaces open at opposite ends of the table, just in case Danny was really angry with Steve.

"All right, everyone, introductions. You, pay attention." he pointed at Steve. "There will be a quiz later. Everyone, this is Steve McGarrett." Steve was a little hurt that there was no "my friend" before his name. Danny rested his hands on his mother's shoulders. She sat at the head of the table closest to the kitchen. "Steve, this is my mother Raffaella and my father, Benjamin." An open-handed gesture indicated the older man at the far end of the table. Then with a mischievous grin, Danny began to speak faster, pointing at the people indicated. "Sisters, Becca — she's a nurse — and Debbie — she's a teacher. (And we are not twins.) Sister's husbands, Firefighter Mark Nichols …" A stabbing gesture paired him with Debbie. "… and Doctor Josh Kemp." A second jab put Josh with Becca. Indicating the end of the table next to grandpa, Danny finished, "And the rugrats, Peter and Elizabeth, Debbie's kids." Then he spun on Steve. "Quiz!"

"Daniel, is that the way I taught you to make introductions?" his mother asked, but she was laughing.

"It's OK, I got it," Steve said confidently. It was tricky because the couples weren't together. The sisters had paired off, as had the brothers-in-law. But Steve ran the table with proper first and last names.

"And for our next trick, we're going to make some lasagna disappear!" Danny said triumphantly.

Steve didn't think Danny was fooling anyone. Probably didn't expect to. But everyone appreciated the effort he made to seem cheerful.

Steve took a seat and covertly studied his partner's family while they overtly studied him. Danny and Debbie took after their father, whose hair must have been that same sandy blond before it went gray. Though Benjamin was taller than his son, he had the same muscular shoulders and compact, powerful build. Becca reminded Steve of Matthew, slender with short brown hair. That was their mother's side of the family. Raffaella was a tiny, birdlike woman with lighter brown hair than Steve would have expected from someone with Italian heritage. Come to think of it, she couldn't have had both black hair and a blond-haired son. Must be northern Italian, Steve analyzed. Josh was slender, too, with dark brown hair and a lean face. Firefighter Mark was tall and well built with a ready smile, rusty red hair and freckles across his nose. The kids had strawberry blond hair, a blend of their parents, with their father's freckles across their noses. With her round face and hair in long pigtails, Elizabeth was about as cute as cute could be. The family got on well with each other, Danny fitting right in as if he hadn't been gone for a year.

Steve felt a pang of jealousy strong enough to require a swallow of beer to wash it down.

Food was passed; conversation proceeded. Raffaella wanted to know about Grace, a topic always guaranteed to relax Danny. The sisters barraged Steve with questions about Hawaii.

"I think it's growing on Danny," Steve said, after answering a dozen queries.

"Never. They put pineapple on pizza," Danny said.

"What's wrong with that?" Josh asked.

Everyone at the table went silent and looked at the doctor. He covered his head as if about to be attacked. Mark put a protective arm around him.

"He can't help it," the firefighter said. "He's from California."

The Williams clan accepted the aberration. "We love you anyway," Becca said.

"What brought you to New Jersey?" Steve asked, glad to have someone else on the hotseat.

Danny snorted. "A little something like a scholarship to Princeton."

"Really?" Steve was impressed, then saw triumph on his partner's face. "What?"

"Two points to New Jersey for the Ivy League."

Steve shook his head and conceded the points. He noticed that no one asked about their work. The family understood what had happened and didn't want to bring up bad memories at dinner. Well, most of the family understood. Steve's heart sank when, in a lull, he heard young Peter explaining to his sister, "Uncle Danny's a policeman in Hawaii, which is where Lilo lives. It's really far away, farther than Connecticut. But a girl got shot dead and he came back to New Jersey."

"Peter Benjamin Nichols!" his mother said in outrage. She hadn't realized that Peter had overheard her talking to her husband.

The boy was open-mouthed in astonishment, not understanding what he'd done wrong.

Danny set his fork down. There was half a serving of his favorite food on his plate, but the lump in his throat wouldn't let him swallow another bite.

"Sorry, Mom." He gave her a kiss on the cheek and left the table.

A few moments later they heard the door open to the backyard. Debbie checked.

"At least this time he took his coat," she reported.

They finished eating mostly in silence. Steve knew that had to be highly unusual for the Williams family.

"Mom, why don't you talk to Danny," Debbie suggested. "Becca and I will do the dishes."

### 5-0 5-0 5-0 ###

Steve stood in the den looking out at the yard, watching Raffaella cradle her son in her arms.

"I hate to see him look so defeated." Danny's father came up behind Steve. "He's such a fighter."

"I know."

"Do you? He was born dead, you know."

Steve could think of no answer for such a startling statement.

"I suppose you couldn't know," Benjamin conceded. "My boy, my firstborn. He was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. He wasn't breathing when the doctor lifted him up and they shook their heads and set him aside." Thirty years later, Benjamin sounded angry still. "I was a firefighter and I picked him up and breathed for him, tiny puffs of air for his tiny lungs, and then his face became pink and he began to wail.

"The doctors still shook their heads and said he wouldn't survive, but I had him transferred to another hospital as soon as I could. They fought for him and he fought. You wouldn't believe a tiny baby could fight so hard.

"That slow start, maybe that's why he didn't grow so tall, but what did his height matter, when he was strong and healthy and such a fighter.

"How many people has he saved, Steve, since that doctor set him aside?"

"Two dozen, just since I've known him," Steve answered.

"Every time he gets an award or does something noteworthy, I send that doctor a note, so he knows that every life is worth fighting for," Benjamin said vindictively.

He saw Steve's awed expression and asked, "What?"

"I thought Danny was the best father I've ever met," the commander answered. "Now I know where he gets it."

"I know Danny has a great deal of respect for you, Steve."

Steve wasn't so sure. "He's the best partner I could ask for, but he resigned. I don't think he trusts me any more. He blames me for Kono's death," Steve said.

"Wrong as usual, McGarrett." They hadn't seen Danny and his mother come in from the patio. "I don't blame you, Steve. I blame myself."

"I don't understand."

"Steve, when you hijacked Kono for our task force, I was the only one qualified to train her, in HPD's eyes. Officially, I was her training officer. She was my responsibility. I left her to Chin mostly, because I know he's a good officer and they worked together so well, and because I couldn't train her and you, too; but I was the one who filed the reports to move her past probationary officer. It's my fault she didn't get the training she needed to survive.

"Hell, it was my fault Sang Min escaped in the first place. I cuffed him in the car, but he got free. And I knew, we all knew, that he'd come after Kono. But I couldn't protect her. We should have protected her, but we couldn't get there in time."

Brimming with tragedy, Danny's blue eyes met Steve's.

"I can't do it any more. I can't be responsible for your life and Chin's. I can't trust myself any more."

He began shaking all over, then he threw a punch at his reflection in the mirror. His mother flinched and cried out at the sudden violence, but Steve had started moving at the first bunching of Danny's shoulders. The commander caught his partner's fist before he could cut himself to ribbons and pinned Danny's arms behind him.

Danny continued to struggle with the strength of desperation, frantically, with no science or strategy, as if he didn't even recognize his captor. He didn't hear Steve's pleas for calm, as the commander wrapped him up in a bear hug.

Benjamin ran to the door. "Josh, bring your bag!"

When the doctor trotted in, Danny's struggles had subsided. His head lolled against Steve's shoulder and he sobbed like a heartbroken child, apparently unable to stop. Josh pulled out a hypodermic and rolled up Danny's sleeve.

"Wha…?" the detective gulped.

"Just the usual," Josh joked. "Just something to calm you down, pal. You need to rest."

As the shot took effect, Danny's sobs quieted. His eyes closed and his breathing ease. He sagged into Steve's embrace. Josh gently brushed back his brother-in-law's hair and checked his pulse.

"OK," he decided. "Let's get him upstairs."

"I've got him," Mark volunteered.

The firefighter took his brother-in-law from Steve and hoisted Danny over his shoulders.

"Sorry," Danny breathed in his ear.

"No worries," Mark said easily. "I can use the practice. You should have seen the 300-pound wino I had to haul out of a burning building last week."

Half the family crowded up the stairs after them, but Steve cut around front to open the door Mark indicated and turn down the covers on Danny's bed. Steve sat on the twin bed opposite while Mark and Josh made Danny comfortable. Josh checked Danny's pulse again and looked into the sleepy blue eyes.

"Better?" the doctor asked.

"Yes. Thanks," Danny answered carefully. "Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize to me. I can never pay you back what I owe you," Josh said. "Just get some sleep, please. Everyone's worried about you."

His stern gaze swept everyone out of the bedroom, but Debbie and her children blocked the door.

"Mark, Peter has something to say to his uncle."

Mark looked at the bed uncertainly.

"I don't know, hon. I think he's asleep."

"'m awake." Though too tired to raise his head, Danny valiantly wrenched his eyes open to regard his nephew.

Peter approached the bed solemnly, tailed by his sister.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Danny. I didn't mean to make you sad."

Danny's trembling hand stroked the boy's hair. "It's OK, Peter. I know you didn't understand. But this isn't a TV show we're talking about. Kono was a real person. She was my friend and now she's dead and I'll never see her again."

Tears welled in Danny's eyes and spilled down his cheeks.

Peter's little shadow Elizabeth pressed forward to lay her head on Danny's chest. "Was she a good person, Uncle Danny?"

"The best."

"Then she's with Jesus in heaven and nothing can hurt her again," the child said with simple faith.

Steve had to wipe his eyes, as the room seemed to blur.

"Come on, kids. Uncle Danny needs to sleep."

Elizabeth immediately pulled the covers up to Danny's chin and smoothed his hair back, in obvious imitation of her mother's bedtime ritual. "Sleep tight," the girl said solemnly.

"Thank you, honey." Danny whispered in the girl's ear, before sending her away.

Steve caught his breath at the angelic scene. For the first time, the itinerant SEAL truly, deeply understood why Danny missed New Jersey and what Rachel had done to him tearing him away from his roots. Steve started to turn away, but Danny caught his eye. Steve saw the faintest ember of Danny's usual mockery as his partner read his face with his usual ease.

"And you thought I just missed the food and the Yankees."

"You only talk about the food and the Yankees."

"Well, some things are too close to the heart."

Danny closed his eyes and Steve closed the door behind him.

Raffaella escorted their guest to the seat of honor in the living room. Steve didn't know that Danny called it the hotseat in the interrogation chamber.

Debbie set an airhorn on the coffee table. Steve eyed it warily. How much had Danny told his "twin"?

Josh frowned at it. "You're not going to play with that, are you? You'll wake Danny."

"What was I thinking?" Debbie asked rhetorically. She gave Steve a look, Danny's "don't you get it yet?" look. Then Steve realized she was warning him he was in for an interrogation. The SEAL realized the rest of the family was arrayed in a semicircle facing him. He braced himself.

Fortunately, Danny had arranged for backup.

Elizabeth climbed into his lap and cuddled against his chest. Steve automatically put his arms around her. "What's this for?" he asked.

"Uncle Danny said to. He said you don't have any nieces or nephews to hug."

Her words disarmed the crew set for their cross-examination. "Danny's right. I have one sister. That's all the family I have."

"No other family?" Peter asked. He could hardly wrap his mind around it. This group, large as it was, was just a portion of a network of cousins and uncles and aunts — and that was just his mother's side of the family.

"No, just my ohana," Steve said. "That means…"

"Family!" Peter and Elizabeth chorused.

"'Lilo and Stitch,'" their mother explained, but that didn't erase Steve's puzzled frown. "A Disney movie," Debbie clarified.

"But you said you didn't have any family," Peter persisted.

"You're going to be as good an interrogator as your uncle," Steve said. "I meant my team, Danny and Chin — and Kono," he added softly. His eyes swept the Williams clan. "I am so jealous of Danny right now," he confessed.

"But you want to take my boy back with you," Benjamin said.

"Yes, I need him. Hawaii needs him. Grace needs him."

"I knew we wouldn't be able to keep him as long as Grace was in Hawaii," Raffaella said sadly.

"I don't know if he'll come back to Five-0. He sent a letter of resignation."

"He'll go back," Josh said with certainty. "You need him and he needs to help people. He's proud of what he's done in Five-0."

"He's good at it."

"You don't have to tell me. When I was an intern, meds started disappearing. They found a couple of pills in my locker. The hospital was going to handle it 'quietly.'" Josh said with scorn. "They weren't going to call the police, just fire me, end my career before it started.

"But when Danny found out, he investigated on his own time. I was just one of the guys who sometimes dated his sister. He hardly knew me; but he knew me. He found another intern's fingerprints in my locker and then found the missing meds. Proved me innocent."

"He believed in you, Josh," his wife hugged his arm. "And he was right."

"He's got good instincts," Steve said.

Josh shrugged in embarrassment. "Danny'll go back because he's needed."

Steve decided to turn the interrogation around. "You said you were giving Danny 'the usual.' I've seen him lose it in anger, but not like this."

"I'd call that doctor-patient confidentiality," Josh said stiffly.

His sister-in-law gave him the raspberry. "We were all here, Josh," Debbie reminded the doctor. To Steve, she said, "It was one time. It was a really bad case. Child mutilation. Danny tracked down the suspect, just too late for the last little victim."

Mark covered his son's ears and Steve followed suit with Elizabeth, who was half asleep anyway. "He said her body was so fresh, the blood was still dripping," the fireman said. The image had stuck gruesomely in his mind.

Josh surrendered. "You have to realize this was just after the judge said Rachel could take Grace away to Hawaii. He was so stressed."

"And then he was too late to save that little girl," Becca added. "We all came to Sunday dinner here and when Danny saw Elizabeth, he just lost it."

"You must know how emotional he is. Sometimes he lives on his nerves. He just needs a little rest and he'll be fine," Josh said, daring Steve to doubt his partner's capability.

Steve held up both hands in surrender.

"That's enough. Steve is Danny's friend and our guest," Raffaella reminded her family.

"Time to put the spotlights — and the airhorn — away," Benjamin announced.

"Steve, if you want to stay the night, you can have the spare bed in Danny's room."

### 5-0 5-0 5-0 ###

Steve took Raffaella up on her offer. He changed in the bathroom and slipped into Danny's room as stealthily as if he was on a black ops mission.

He felt oddly comfortable lying in the dark, listening to his partner's breathing. He couldn't think why, then he laughed silently at himself. Too many years of the military life, sharing a room at the Academy. Barracks and bivouacs and shipboard quarters. As an officer, he may have rated a single room, but as much time as he spent in the field, he'd hardly ever had that space to himself. Maybe that was why he didn't sleep so well all alone in his father's house. That and the ghosts, of course — his parents and now Kono.

He banished the memories of the dead with an effort and fell asleep.

He woke up at dawn's first light and knew Danny was watching him even before he rolled over to look.

"We need you back. Chin doesn't have anyone left but us," Steve said. "Will you come back, please?"

"This time you say, 'please'? So this time I have a choice?"

Steve swallowed. He had commandeered a stranger but he couldn't do that to a friend. A friend had to have a choice. "Yes," he said quietly.

"I already sent a letter of resignation," Danny answered, just as quietly.

"I may have lost it," Steve said.

Danny tsked. "Always careless with the paperwork."

"I need you to keep me in line," Steve said hopefully.

Danny considered for a long moment, so long it made Steve's heart sink.

"I'll come back," Danny surrendered. "But not right away. I know it would be best to start the investigation immediately, but I just can't, Steve," he pleaded. "I need some time."

"As much as you need," Steve promised.

"Then I'll come back, but it won't be the same."

Steve thought of Kono, the golden girl riding a sparkling wave, the dedicated cop, eager to prove herself. Forever young in memory, never to grow any older.

"No, it won't ever be the same," he agreed.

**The End**


End file.
